EDITOR’S NOTE: Here is the third installment from South County Corresopndent Irene Barajas’ exhaustively researched article about actions being taken by the new Nestucca Valley School District Board. Links below for the summary from the December 11th meeting and the review of the Strategic Plan.
By Irene Barajas, South County Correspondent for the Tillamook County Pioneer
First presented to the public at the November 18th Board Meeting, NVSD’s potential new Board Governance Handbook is rife with issues, ranging from easily forgivable punctuation and grammar mistakes to repeatedly using California State Law terms instead of Oregon, and, in one section, completely going AGAINST Oregon State Law.
Community members at November’s meeting spoke about their concerns and the Board ultimately ended up deciding to table it for further review. I was one of the attendees to comment about the numerous issues in the document, though it doesn’t show on the recording of that meeting, as it was at the very end of the meeting and Chair Greg Woods had tried to get me to email my grievance instead of speaking to it publicly. I declined, as the majority of the emails myself and others known to me have sent to the Board with complaints or concerns have gone unanswered.
After that meeting, Board Vice Chair Sherry Hartford approached me. She said she felt the references to CA Law and the protocol that directly violates OR Law were holdovers left in the BGH by accident by Dr. Fred Van Vleck. Hartford also told me the Board had only received the updated BGH from Dr. Van Vleck that same day and had not actually had time to review it prior to the meeting.
So why then, if Board Members had not even had a chance to review it, was the Governance Handbook on the November Agenda to potentially vote to pass it in the first place? Many in attendance felt the Board had been intending to do just that, without any further inspection of the document, until many of the discrepancies in it were publicly pointed out by community members. However, most were satisfied with the Board’s final decision to set it aside and vote on it at a later date, giving them time to inspect and edit the errors.
The second appearance of the updated Board Governance Handbook was nearly a month later, in the December 9th Board Meeting packet. It was now listed on the Consent Agenda, awaiting approval alongside the Minutes from the November meeting and the Reprioritized District Strategic Plan (https://www.tillamookcountypioneer.net/nestucca-valley-school-district-changes-to-nvsd-strategic-plan/)
Items on the Consent Agenda are placed there when the Board intends to vote to accept a document with no additional discussion or review. The outrageousness of an Oregon school board trying to give a no-questions-asked pass to a governing document that not only repeatedly referenced California Law but also blatantly broke one of Oregon’s was not lost on those paying attention to Nestucca’s current Directors and their decisions.
Additionally, I feel it’s important to mention that any changes to the Governance Handbook should only take place during Public meetings or Workshops, neither of which had been announced between November 18th and December 9th , or to December 11th – https://www.tillamookcountypioneer.net/nesucca-valley-school-district-board-meeting-dec-11-2025-recap-community-comments-about-transparency/ – when the meeting actually took place, due to flooding in the area). As such, the version of the document in the December 9th packet should have been identical to the one in the November packet.
It wasn’t.
Though inconsequential to the overall Handbook, an item that had been added to the November document had subsequently been removed prior to the version published in the December 9th packet, and punctuation had been altered in one section. All the other errors, additions, and concerning verbiage remained.
It would seem that, much like with the Reprioritized District Strategic Plan (link to DSP article?), the Board had met outside of Public Meeting or Workshop to meet, discuss, and make decisions on the Board Governance Handbook. This directly defies Oregon State Law regarding Public Meetings Law. Please see the Strategic Plan (link to DSP article?) article for specifics.
I spent several hours pouring over the December version of the Handbook. I took time to highlight the many errors and inconsistencies I found. I also pointed out the protocol changes, omissions, and additions from the previous, official 2023 version, something the current Board had not bothered to do either. Some of the lesser problems, such as grammar and punctuation, were also present in the previous version of the document, last updated in December 2023 by the Board Members at that time, which included current Director Diane Boisa and myself, though I had been on the Board less than a month at that point.
Prior to when the December meeting was originally scheduled to take place, I publicly posted my highlighted version of the Handbook to social media, including to several community pages, along with the 2023 version for comparison. When I initially made my post, the December 9th packet with the Board Governance Handbook listed in the Consent Agenda was still posted to the NVSD Board Meeting webpage. By the time the December meeting actually took place on December 11th, the Handbook had been removed from the agenda entirely, the other two Consent Agenda documents had become Action Items. It’s possible that the timing of the agenda changes is completely coincidental.
The final thing on the December 11th agenda was Public Comment for items NOT listed on the agenda, which would include things such as the freshly removed Board Governance Handbook.
First to speak was community member and former educator Debra Wisniewski. She told the Board she was glad they had removed the Handbook from the agenda, because she felt it showed they realized it wasn’t ready to be voted on. She pointed out that there were many errors in the document, including references to CA law, grammar, and capitalization. Mrs. Wisniewski stated she was curious about the change from Board of Directors to instead Board of Trustees, and Board Chair to Board President. Additionally, curious about who Dr. Fred Van Vleck was, she had looked him up and found an article stating he had been a “sometimes controversial Superintendent” in Eureka, CA, and had left that position in January 2024. Mrs. Wisniewski also wondered why the Board was working with a California based company and not an Oregon one, though she didn’t expect the Board to have an answer to that since they had previously said former NVSD Supt. Misty Wharton had arranged the initial Workshop with Dr. Van Vleck.
Chairman Woods called me up next. I had brought with me a copy of the BGH with the highlighted errors and areas of concern and handed that to Woods. I told the Board, that the majority of the errors were menial didn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things, and that I understood those things being overlooked. My concern was with the bigger problems, like the continual reference to CA laws, which Director Hartford had tried to reassure me were just “holdovers” due to Dr. Van Vleck’s ties to CA. This included the illegal protocol now in the document, found in section 2.5, which currently says that members of the public may only provide public comment if attending in person. Please find protocol 2.5 in the detailed issues listed later in this article for more details.
I reminded the Board Members in attendance (Woods, Hagan, Cole and Boisa) that many of the errors in the mistake-laden document had been pointed out at the November meeting. However, it was still on the agenda for this month’s meeting until AFTER the meeting was initially supposed to have taken place [on the 9th]. This showed me that the Board “did not, in fact, go through and read it.” I pointed out, “.. which is also something that in your [Hand]book says you will do: read your materials and go through them.”
After I’d continued on a little longer, (admittedly incorrectly, as deeper inspection would later reveal to me) and mentioned the one difference in the Handbook between November and the current meeting was a punctuation change, Chairman Wood interrupted me.
Woods defended the Board, saying there’s “a reason” why the Handbook was no longer on the agenda. When I pointed out that if the meeting had been held on its originally scheduled date just two days prior, it still would have been. The fact that the document was listed at all in its current state was the point I was trying, and seemingly failing, to make.
“That doesn’t mean we have to pass it,” Woods countered, to which I replied, “I’m happy to hear that.”
“I think this Board does talk a lot anytime there’s questions, especially [compared to] previous Boards, with Consent Agendas where some things were passed as a group of five things and just a ‘yes/no’ and it was passed,” Chairman Woods continued.
“Regardless of the previous Board’s choices, these are your choices now, and you were attempting to pass it on Consent Agenda,” I reminded him, calling out the irony of his statement.
“We were reviewing it to pass,” Woods claimed. “It wasn’t necessary- that’s what we were here to review. Just because anything is on a agenda doesn’t mean it’s automatic… We vote, there has to be at least three yeses. Nothing is automatic.”
“That’s not it. Its stated in the agenda. It shows your intentions, Greg,” I retorted as I walked back to my seat. I could tell at this point that attempting to explain how the Consent Agenda works and what it’s intended to be used for (approving minutes from previous meetings, giving final approval of policy changes that have already been read and discussed in public at prior meetings, etc.) would be pointless, and NONE of the points Chairman Woods was defending related to the actual problems in the Governance Handbook. He was only attempting to defend it having been on the December agenda at all, and also trying to make it seem like having it on the Consent Agenda specifically wasn’t its own separate issue altogether either.
After the tense exchange, the meeting officially concluded on a happy note. Former NVSD teacher Nancy Whitehead spoke about the exciting plans for the old Beaver school building and her husband, also a former NVSD teacher, Gordon Whitehead, brought attention to the impressive number of books Nancy had collected for community Christmas baskets.
While myself and many other community members I spoke with were glad to see the error-filled Handbook ultimately removed from consideration on the December agenda, the problems found within it should not be overlooked. The Board announced on December 11th that they will be reviewing the document at a Public Workshop sometime in January. If you’d like to attend it will likely need to be in person, as Workshops aren’t usually live-streamed.
For those who are curious about the changes, additions, omissions and concerns in the updated Board Governance Handbook as presented on December 9th, I’ve outlined the majority of them below.
Many of the problems are fairly minor, such as:
- The new Handbook refers to the Board as the Board of Trustees rather than Directors, though Directors is what’s used in most of NVSD’s other governing documents.
- On the first page it uses the term “Chair”, but the rest of the document now says “President”.
- The group label “Board” is consistently capitalized, but Superintendent and District, as well as other titles, are typically no longer afforded that same recognition.
- The word “Member(s)” is used interchangeably in reference to the Board and to the public, with no capitalization to differentiate between them.
- The term “Closed Session” replaces “Executive Session” several times, using common CA language instead of what was in previous editions of the Governance Handbook.
- There’s repeated reference to “Open Meeting Law” or “Bown Act”, which is a CA law. Oregon statutes call it “Public Meetings Law.”
Here are some of the more notable changes, with their protocol number for easy reference:
1.3.1- Attending as many Committee Meetings as possible has been removed as a responsibility of Individual Board Members.
1.3.4- Wording has been added to now direct the Board Members to “positively” inform others about the District. While this may seem inconsequential, it implies the current Board may not want any struggles or challenges communicated to the public, potentially creating a lack of transparency.
Interestingly, the only notable change I could find between the November and December BGH versions was that for the November 18th version the Board had added to the list in protocol 1.3, saying that one of the Board Member Responsibilities was to “Serve on committees or task forces and offer to take on special assignments as possible.” This addition was nowhere to be found in the December 9th packet’s version of the document.
NEWLY ADDED: 1.5 addresses anonymous complaints. It states that anonymous complaints will not be considered unless the involve a safety concern.
NEWLY ADDED: 2.2 lists steps to consider in a disruptive meeting.
NEWLY ADDED: 2.5 opens by stating the Board values community involvement, and that regular Board meetings will be live streamed, recorded and archived for live and future viewing. While it also encourages members of the public who cannot attend meetings in person to email comments to the Board, it goes on to note that the emailed comments will not be read at the meeting.
NEWLY ADDED: 2.9 gives the President of the Board the ability to tell the Superintendent where to sit. This is NOT a directive or suggestion in Oregon’s Public Meetings Law. The only other place I could find any other reference to this protocol was in a CA school district’s Governance Handbook which had also been written with the help of Dr. Van Vleck.
NEWLY ADDED: 2.14 dictates what the Board Members may or may not speak about during their reports/communications in meetings.
NEWLY ADDED: 2.19.4 asks Board Members to have cameras on whenever possible when meeting virtually.
NEWLY ADDED: 2.20.3 states that “When a Board Member abstains [from voting], their abstention shall not be counted for purposes of determining whether a majority of membership of the Board has taken action.”
NEWLY ADDED: 2.24 adds protocol for roll call votes.
NEWLY ADDED: 2.27 directs the Superintendent to get pre-approval from the Board for any non-routine expenses in excess of $75,000.
NEWLY ADDED: 2.29 addresses Public Comment, stating a vague time limit of “generally” 3 minutes per speaker and 20 minutes per subject, to be imposed by the Board President. These are the same time constraints NVSD Board Meetings already follow, so while having the protocol specified in the Handbook is new, it’s been in practice for several years. The new protocol also states, “The Board president may rule on the appropriateness of a topic… [and] may indicate the time and place when it should be presented.”
NEWLY ADDED: 3.1 directs Board Members to “be actively involved in the district through observations and individual stakeholder engagement” and says they may “only be on external committees and by official appointment by the Board.”
NEWLY ADDED: 5.3 says only, “The Board recognizes and respects the superintendent’s responsibility to manage the school district to best serve the needs of the students.”
NEWLY ADDED: 5.7 is a directive for the Superintendent to inform the Board when the media contacts him/her. While this makes sense as a protocol, it seems like it would fit better as an item in the list of Supt/Board.
Now, on to the bigger concerns found in this updated Board Governance Handbook:
Topping the list is the ILLEGAL protocol found in 2.5. It violates Oregon Law, saying, “Public comment will only be taken from members of the public who attend Board meetings in person.” ORS 199.050.0050.5A dictates that, “When public testimony is permitted, the governing body shall allow oral testimony by phone, video, or other electronic or virtual means if in-person oral testimony is allowed.”
2.19.2- Changed previous language of being discreet in checking “electronic devices” to simply “cell phones”, followed by NEWLY ADDED 2.19.3 directing Board Members to not send “text messages” during a Board meeting, except in the case of emergency. The specificity of these two terms leaves the Board open to using other electronic devices and means of communication during Board meetings.
2.28.4- Replaced “Governance Team Member”, which refers to Board Members and the Superintendent, with just “Board Member.” The protocol now says, “If a Board Member feels compelled to speak to the issue (referring to responding to a Public Comment), the member must first be recognized by the Board president. The comments must be brief and only clarifying or correcting. Any further discussion should be agendized.” It’s unclear if the Superintendent is now not allowed to speak in response to Public Comments, or just no longer has to request permission to do so.
4.1- Some of the language in this protocol has been changed and it now CONTRADICTS ITSELF. Whereas 4.1 begins by stating, “Board members will be actively involved in the collective bargaining process…”, and the previous version gave Board Members the ability to attend at-the-table negotiations, with Board approval, 4.1.2 now states “[The Board will] Participate by providing direction and guidance to those selected to represent the Board (District Negotiation Team). Board member(s) will not attend at-the-table negotiations.” Historically, a Board Member has been welcomed and present at most Collective Bargaining meetings. For the past several years, this has usually been long-standing and current Director Diane Boisa.
5.1 has some NEWLY ADDED items, as well as a change in the order of listed items the Superintendent is to inform the Board of as soon as possible. Previously, “Notable achievements”, the only positive item on the list, was the first listed. Now it is the very last in line, at #8. The list also newly includes “Anytime an emergency vehicle is on campus,” and simply “Written complaints.” It fails to specify the level of seriousness required to qualify a written complaint be reported to the Board, or quantify what kind of written complaint (i.e. a formal complaint from a parent regarding staff misconduct, vs and email from an older student upset about what was served for lunch) and could create a lot of extra work for the Superintendent. 5.1 also incorrectly includes “In all matters, the Board and superintendent are expected to protect confidential information” as item #9 in the list of communications instead of allowing it to be a stand-alone directive as intended.
Lastly, NEWLY ADDED 5.4 states that it’s the Superintendent’s responsibility to work with and be the primary contact for the District’s attorney, and that Board Members will work with the Supt with any legal questions. It goes on to say that while the Board President or VP may contact the District’s attorney if they have a serious or legal concern about the Supt, “Individual Board Members will only contact the District’s attorney with the authority of the majority of the Board.” Hypothetically speaking, this implies that if a single Member were to have serious legal concerns their fellow Board Members and/or Superintendent, they are supposed to get permission from those same hypothetical Board Members to speak to the District’s Attorney about their concerns.
Nestucca Valley School District’s next scheduled Board Meeting will be Tuesday, January 13, 2026 at 7pm. To view the agenda and packet for that meeting once they’re published, join via Zoom, or to check for the aforementioned January Workshop, visit https://nestucca.k12.or.us/20037_4. All previous meeting agendas, packets, and video recordings can be found at that link as well.
If you’d like to voice your questions or concerns to the NVSD’s Board Members or Superintendent Richwine before the next meeting, they can be reached at GregW@nestucca.k12.or.us, SherryH@nestucca.k12.or.us, JasonH@nestucca.k12.or.us, KaylaC@nestucca.k12.or.us, DianeB@nestucca.k12.or.us, and KenR@nestucca.k12.or.us
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